Star-crossed lovers: 'Romeo and Juliet' brings ballet twist to classic Shakespeare play

Festival Ballet Albuquerque’s “Romeo and Juliet” is a story of love, tragedy and dance all blended into one unique performance that puts a spin on the classic play.

On Saturday, May 3, and Sunday, May 4, Festival Ballet Albuquerque will perform an original production based on William Shakespeare’s “Romeo and Juliet.”

“It’s incorporating our professional level dancers and obviously the main difficult dance scenes, but we also have children in the carnival and market scenes, and we have adult dancers,” said Patricia Dickinson, FBA artistic director. “A village or a township is made up of all ages, so for it to be even historically accurate is to have all ages.”

“Romeo and Juliet” are star-crossed lovers from feuding families desperately trying to stay together even when forces threaten to rip them apart.

Originally, the show was meant to be a one act — a shortened version of a full-length production — but after choreographer Alex Ossadnik began crafting the show, he and Dickinson realized in order to do it right, they needed to expand the length.

“I said ‘We have to have more of the story so let’s go ahead make it two acts,’” Dickinson said. “‘Romeo and Juliet’ is such a huge story and with so many moving parts, it just turned into a two-act performance.”

While some productions choose to take a more modern approach to classic stories, Festival Ballet Albuquerque decided to keep “Romeo and Juliet” as contemporary as possible, ranging from more folksy style music that sets up scenes and using more traditional costuming like long dresses to properly establish the era.

Another aspect of the story that will be kept in the ballet is sword fighting. In order to bring the sword fighting to life while maintaining safety, a professional was brought in to teach stage combat skills.

“We haven’t done a brand new from the floor up, beginning to end in probably a decade, and so we’re having all new choreography, all new sets on stage, and all new props and all new costumes,” Dickinson said. “So it’s quite an undertaking, and it’s really beautiful. I’m very pleased with where it’s going.”

Star-crossed lovers: 'Romeo and Juliet' brings ballet twist to classic Shakespeare play